Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Chris Cooley, Washington Redskins: I’ve heard something about black. I know everyone likes the original whiote Redskins jersey. But it would be awesome to change it up every once in a while.

This black jersey rumor comes up again and again. Sometimes, the story is that it’s something the team was exploring at some point in the past. Other times, it’s something that’s happening in the future, either as an alternate or a jersey revision. During the 2008 season, a reader was absolutely confident in a series of emails that the team would wear some sort of black alternate for the game commemorating the one-year anniversary of Sean Taylor’s death. But it didn’t happen then, and it doesn’t appear to be coming up any time in the immediate future either.

Which is not to say that it wasn’t explored at some point. Buried in the comments on yesterday’s first post on this subject, a commenter by the name of mrbeef9 posted a link to a gallery on the website of Gameplan Creative, a “Chicago-based, award winning sports + entertainment branding and marketing agency.”

In collaboration with the Washington Redskins, Gameplan Creative researched and proposed an extensive rebranding initiative for the NFL franchise. Based on input from the team and Redskins fans and outfitters, we developed an enhanced identity which included a new home and road uniform, an alternate 3rd uniform, updated and new secondary marks and a comprehensive brand adherence program. The goal was to stay true to the iconic brand while evolving the marks to a more modern and merchandise-friendly look and to create a standardized style guide for a consistant Redskins brand experience.

As best as I can piece together, this was something that almost occurred almost half a decade ago, and — thankfully, in my opinion — did not become a reality.
I have two main knocks on the jerseys:

And second, they include what Paul Lukas of the UniWatch blog calls BFBS, or “black for black’s sake.” Black is not one of the Redskins colors, and including it in a misguided attempt to make the team seem somehow tougher would be a mistake.

Also, these jerseys look like they belong in the now-defunct NFL Europa, but that’s neither here nor there.

The BFBS problem is even more pronounced on the helmets; the thick black stripe down the center makes no visual sense to me, and seems to have been added because, hey, black is awesome. I do think removing the feathers from the outside of the helmet logo streamlines things a bit (the guy with feathers in his hair in a circle with feathers on it is a little redundant, if you think about it), but on the whole I’m pretty glad that this never happened.

I do think the W-with-a-spear-through-it mark suggested as an alternate below has some potential, though. Not necessarily as a helmet logo, but … well, it’s different in an interesting way, at least.